I was speaking with a friend today about why I believed the late Father of the Word of Faith Movement's Kenneth Hagin's teachings are false. I wanted to clarify that I do think that they are false if that was unclear in my blog a few days ago.
I'm not sure how to best respond as there is so much that I could and want to go into.
I would be so long though that I'm sure no one would ever read it.
The original post of the four points Hagin gives in his book titled "How to Write Your Own Ticket With God" are in italics, the comments from my friend are in bold and my response in green...
Ok brother lets talk about this. I look at this process and I can see some validation to in your life.
1. Step number one is "Say it." "Positive or negative, it is up to the individual. According to what the individual says, that shall he receive." - Seth decides to adopt and says I am going to adopt. Hagin's premise is more than a casual speaking. The speaking is speaking things into existence. Most of the teaching is about health, wealth, abundance.
This is called Positive Confession and positive confession has it's basis in a branch of New Age thought.
It is much more than just having a good attitude. Most of Hagins teachings come from E.W. Kenyon's.
If I have cancer, saying I have no cancer and speaking it out of existence is more of the contextof the "say it" part of Hagin's teaching. If I have financial troubles speaking wealth into existence is more of the context.I know that wasn't well stated in my first post. For example , at a large Word of Faith church one of the things the pastor will have the congragants do is pull out their wallets and "speak" wealth into them. "Wallet you are thick and full of money" "Say it" they will chant. I experienced a service where the song at the close was...."Money's coming, money, money is acoming" This was sang over and over again, to speak it into existance.
Kenneth Hagin states: It is not God's will for any to be sick (Healing the fathers Provision, p.9 ) I believe that it is the plan of our father that no believer should be sick that every believer should live his life to full time and actually wear out if Jesus tarries then fall asleep in Jesus. I state boldly that it is not the will of God my father that we should suffer with cancer and other dread disease and reap pain and anguish. No its God's will that we should be healed.”
When I say I am going to adopt I am not speaking with that kind of authority. I would say we feel that God is leading us to adopt and we will walk down that path as God leads.
2. Step number two is "Do it." "Your action defeats you or puts you over. According to your action, you receive or you are kept from receiving." - Seth decides to apply what he says about adoption and moves forward with praying and taking action on what the Spirit is telling him!
It is obvious that if one is to attain anything we normally must do something.
Yet Hagin's teachings that were not well articulated in my first post are more than just buying that ipod that I've wanted for a year by doing something like going to Best Buy.
Doing it is taking the next step.
If I have cancer, "Doing it" would be to have faith and stop taking my medicine as an act of "faith" (this has been a common teaching of the Word of Faith Movement, also one that was told to my grandmother who died soon after of cancer by a pastor) and do not go to the doctor (that would be to lack faith). Doing this proves you have "faith".
If I want to live like a king start doing it and "believe" that the Lord will provide for your lifestyle.
3. Step number three is "Receive it." We are to plug into the "powerhouse of heaven." "Faith is the plug, praise God! Just plug in." - Seth continues to pray as he has done what he physically can and now it is by the grace of God that 2 beautiful babies can be a part of the Magnuson family.Continues to push for God heart to bless them and receive.
This is where the rubber meets the road. So what if my adoption would have failed? Would it have been by my lack of saying, and doing?
Hagin says "if anybody, anywhere, will take these four steps or put these four principles into operation, he will always receive whatever he wants from Me or from God the Father."
Though that would have been hard, could that have been God's plan if those were the circumstances, or is my faith so powerful that I can stop God?
1 Peter 1:6-7
In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.
God we see in scripture often uses difficult circumstances and trials to shape us. Not that I would have desired that, or sought it, but I hope I could have rested in God if that would have happened and not my faith, or my plans.
To me this is one of the greatest faults of this teaching. It creates "believers" who deny pain or suffering, do all they can to escape from it, and deny that God could be using it for their own good.
When I was in youth ministry I would often get students who would ask...Doesn't God want to give me the desires of my heart? Most of the time this was brought up in justification of wanting a Porsche or a shack in Malibu and such.
I think though that there is this mindset in many Christians in the west and most Word of Faith theology.
The second half of verse 4 of Psalm 37 is the proof text often used.
Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this: Ps 37:4-5
The problem is that it is a conditional promise.
Delight yourself in the Lord is the condition. You can't have the desires of your heart if your a not truly delighting in God.
Those who genuinely are delighting in Him are not going to be enamoured material things.
Their desires will change. They will say with Paul to live is Christ, to die is GAIN! They may seek discomfort to make Christ known in an unreached place.
I think that this sort of teaching makes shallow, weak, materialistic "believers" that are interested mostly in following God so that all things go good for them, and to avoid all pain and risk.
I am not impressed when things are going good with believers. It's when all hell breaks loose against them and they cling to Christ and see Him as their true value that real faith is seen.
Is it impressive when 100 people come to church on most churches on any given Sunday?
Not here where I live.
Yet in a place like North Korea where you will be killed if found going to church, that is a bit more impressive, and shows how much of a value Christ is in the face of possible death to those who count the cost.
I think the Word of faith theologians miss this, and this I think is a core of the Christian life.If you live long enough you will assuredly face tragedy. When it comes what will you do, and is Christ your rock to run to even if the cancer spreads?
The problem I see with #3 - "Receive it" Is that God has the right to say no. Even if you think your way is best.
He has the right to give and take life, and we are to say Blessed be His name in either circumstance.
I think from all of the reading I have done on the Word of Faith teaching I have never come across a proper scriptural response for loss or pain.
It is always "you" didn't have enough faith, or a demand of God to give you what you want like a 2 year old who wants something from a toy store throws a fit.
4. Step number four is "Tell it so others may believe." This final step might be considered the Faith movement's outreach program. - Seth is now a father and God has blessed him with a great testimony to God and his faithfulness!I can see it all the time.
Matthew 7:7-12
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! 12 So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.
Here is Desiring God's response to the next question after reading this verse...
Does this mean that everything a child of God asks for he gets?
I think the context here is sufficient to answer this question. No, we do not get everything we ask for and we should not and we would not want to. The reason I say we should not is because we would in effect become God if God did everything we asked him to do. We should not be God. God should be God. And the reason I say that we would not want to get everything we asked is because we would then have to bear the burden of infinite wisdom which we do not have. We simply don’t know enough to infallibly decide how every decision will turn out and what the next events in our lives, let alone in history, should be.
But the reason I say that we do not get all we ask is because the text implies this. Jesus says in verses 9-10 that a good father will not give his child a stone if he asks for bread, and will not give him a serpent if he asks for a fish. This illustration prompts us to ask, “What if the child asks for a serpent?” Does the text answer whether the Father in heaven will give it? Yes, it does. In verse 11, Jesus draws out this truth from the illustrations: Therefore, how much more will your Father give good things to those who ask him.
He Gives Only Good Things
He gives good things. Only good things. He does not give serpents to children. Therefore, the text itself points away from the conclusion that Ask and you will receive means Ask and you will receive the very thing you ask for when you ask for it in the way you ask for it. It doesn’t say that. And it doesn’t mean that.
If we take the passage as a whole, it says that when we ask and seek and knock—when we pray as needy children looking away from our own resources to our trustworthy heavenly Father—he will hear and he will give us good things. Sometimes just what we asked. Sometimes just when we ask it. Sometimes just the way we desire. And other times he gives us something better, or at a time he knows is better, or in a way he knows is better.
And of course, this tests our faith. Because if we thought that something different were better, we would have asked for it in the first place. But we are not God. We are not infinitely strong, or infinitely righteous, or infinitely good, or infinitely wise, or infinitely loving. And therefore, it is a great mercy to us and to the world that we do not get all we ask.
This is so much just touching the surface of the Word of Faith practices and teachings. I would be happy to try and post more in the future as this is very interesting, and timely given the state of the church in the US.
I would encourage anyone to get to know this doctrine because it is very deceitful, it is growing mega churches here and around the globe, it is appealing to humanity (who wouldn't like a Porsche?), and gets it's founding & roots in Christian Science & New Age.
It has just enough truth to hook many who do not seek out contexts of proof text teaching.
Sadly many desperate people turn to it, thinking God is some genie type god in a bottle it seems.
Test all things!
This life is a vapor, don't waste it seeking things that rust and moth destroy!
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